Acoustic Speaker for iPhone

December 27, 2012 | Comment

Not a Love EggJust a quick update with an interesting gadget received this Christmas, the odd looking object shown on the left. When I asked my Facebook friends what they thought it might be I received a few responses that I cannot reproduce here.

It is, however, an acoustic speaker for an iPhone or an unpowered speaker booster, if you prefer. As you can see from the picture below you shove your iPhone into the slot at the top and all sound get amplified as it is redirected out of the large hole in the front.

I can confirm that it works well … Read the rest

Time to re-evaluate Flickr

December 18, 2012 | Comment

IMG_5826The blogsphere is all abuzz with Instagram’s proposed change of terms of service from the middle of next month which some have already dubbed “Instagram’s suicide note”. Basically the changes give Instagram (or parent Facebook) to sell your pictures of which you get no portion of that sale or any choice in the matter.

You can read a good summary of the situation over at c|net but I am already considering whether I want someone else to have such control over work that I produce and I am thinking that I don’t. I still have a Flickr account that I … Read the rest

Virtually, the UK Leads the World

December 17, 2012 | Comment

Fascinating new report from OFCOM which shows the the UK is still a world leader in one thing and that is consuming online content.

According to the report the UK is top dog when it comes to:

  • watching TV from catch-up services, such as the BBC’s iPlayer
  • online shopping. We spend an average of £1,083 per person per year online
  • accessing social networks on our mobiles

Watch a slightly surprised Yank go through the numbers in the video below or see the data courtesy of the Guardian here.

Go Team GB!… Read the rest

Google Analytics – the Videos!

December 16, 2012 | Comment

Shopping online can be an absolute godsend but it can also be a complete pain in the arse. Google clearly recognises that’s a problem for many and that the issue is the user experience offered by so many websites.

How do I know that they understand the issues? Because they have produced a series of humorous videos that highlight a set of common issues on shopping websites and apply those issues to real world scenarios. The three videos are embedded below, my favourite being the checkout one.

What I found quite surprising about the videos is that they are clearly … Read the rest

Hacked Off (again)

December 9, 2012 | Comment

A dozen years ago, when the web was a very different beast to what it is today I, wrote a series of scripts in the language Perl what was a simple content management system (CMS) to run my websites. Those websites have run using those same scripts with little change over that time. Now I only have  two sites left on that infrastructure and after a hacking this week I have decided that it is finally time to retire the scripts and more the sites to WordPress. I am a bit sad to have to scrap my work but I … Read the rest

Prioritising Marketing on Start-up

November 23, 2012 | Comment

Something struck me recently about the difference between OSX and Windows. What is the first thing that happens when you start-up a Mac?  You hear the “Wall-e” sound (if you don’t know what that sounds like take a look at the video below). Only then does the start-up begin. When you start up a Windows PC you see the BIOS checks and then Windows logo and eventually the Windows tinkle.

In order to do this Apple must be prioritising loading the sound drivers first in order to do so. Something that they can do because they have control over both … Read the rest

“Modern Internet Explorer”

November 15, 2012 | Comment

This made me laugh out loud when I saw it.

Running Windows 8 via Parallels on my Mac the caption for Internet Explorer is shown as “Modern Internet Explorer” presumably as opposed to that old, out-dated version that they previously shipped! This text would normally appear on the title bar of a Windows application but with the new Metro style app you don’t get to see the title bar.

I have to admit that I do like the clean look of the new version of IE but at the same time it is hugely frustrating as I have yet been … Read the rest

The Chubby Challenge

November 13, 2012 | Comment

One of the great things about the Internet is that it allows new ideas to be quickly built and got into the hands of the public without having to spend huge amounts of cash. This has allowed countless number of people to become entrepreneurs even if only in a very small way. And now it is my turn.

For the last few months I have been working on a new project called The Chubby Challenge which is based on something that we used to run when I was working at AppSwing.

Most office workers seem to lead a sedentary lifestyle … Read the rest

pIO – microSD Adapter for Raspberry Pi

November 7, 2012 | 2 comments

The Raspberry Pi is a great little device – cheap enough that it can get into the hands of just about anyone and challenging enough to pique the curiosity of most. As a lifelong software developer and gadget freak I am fascinated with mine. I have decided though that it is pointless (for me) to use it for development as I have some many other outlets for that. I have decided therefore to use it to look at interfacing with hardware and have ordered a breadboard and other bits and pieces to do some simple tests. Nothing more challenging than … Read the rest